


Tired and waiting for the sunlight

by bchekov



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Biphobia, M/M, todd's parents are pieces of shit ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 11:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13657686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bchekov/pseuds/bchekov
Summary: It’s been a year now since he left Blackwing.





	Tired and waiting for the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> it's never established how old dirk is when he leaves blackwing but i imagine he's around 19 here

His legs feel heavy as he drags them across the street to the bus stop he temporarily calls home. He has been sleeping there for the last couple of days as the people who owned motel he was staying at finally kicked him out for not paying adequately; they had taken pity on him and let him remain far longer than they should have and he felt quite guilty about it, but when you don’t have much money, or none at all for that matter, you don’t really have a choice but to depend on others’ kindness.

It’s been a year now since he left Blackwing. He has managed so far by traveling the country and doing favours as well as small jobs here and there. While it hasn’t been easy he has met some interesting people, and some not as interesting. Every place he had been to started out fun and _new_ , and it was amazing, until he inevitably messed it up by talking too much about things that aren’t supposed to be talked about or acting in a manner that most he encountered found strange. Slowly he had come to the realisation he wasn’t what people considered _normal_. They told him he talked too much, talked too little, talked too fast; reacted slowly, acted too restlessly, did everything in a weird order, and while none of it was new information it still hurt. He had been told all of that, and more, at Blackwing, so to him it just confirmed the fact he’s utterly useless. Have always been and always will be.

After eight and a half months on the move he decided he was tired of it, of everything, so he quit everything he had going on, jumped on the nearest bus and let it take him wherever. He had been trying to ignore his hunches as much as possible since escaping Blackwing to prove to himself he wasn’t psychic, and if there was some tiny, totally unreal and very much insignificant possibility he _was_ , he didn’t want to be defined by only that; but after three hours he got a particular intense feeling to get off at the upcoming stop. Exhausted, both physically and emotionally, he thought _fuck it_ and went with it.

For the first time in months he just followed where his intuition took him and it felt _good_. He was never in one place for long but he also never left the city. He wandered around all day and did a bit of everything; small things like helping an old lady find her cat for instance (she had called him Dirk when he returned it, and when he corrected her she said he looked like a Dirk. He later found out it was her grandson’s name, but as he rolled the name around in his mouth he found that he quite liked it.), and occasionally running into people he recognized from missing posters; the people at the police station probably recognised his voice by now from all the anonymous tips he had left them. Every problem he solved rewarded him in some way. Sometimes he’d find money on the ground and other times a stranger would offer him a place to sleep, but most often he found himself crashing at train stations, and during his less proud moments, park benches. Food was his priority to spend the little money he had on, so he really had no choice.

As the weeks passed the new and exciting feeling faded and he was back to his previous exhaustion. Despite meeting new people just about every day he connected with them, not in the way he had before, and while that means no one reminding him how useless he was at most, if not all, tasks he had been given, it also came with a different form of loneliness similar to the one he felt when he was isolated back at Blackwing. The emotional toll made an impact on his physical well-being, which resulted in later nights and earlier mornings of trying, _trying_ , to figure something out, which led him to where is currently is; lying on his back, upper half sprawled across the hard surface, feet bracing on the ground. It’s not anywhere near even _slightly_ comfortable but it’s quiet and the moderate breeze was nice, which makes for a rather peaceful environment; which is why he was startled to the point of almost falling off the seating by a car speeding past him and hitting the breaks so abruptly he was scared the driver might actually come flying through the window. Luckily they didn’t, but he fears they might be injured since he can’t see any movement inside the vehicle.

He rises slowly, lower back sore from half hanging of the seating, and walks uncertainly to the car. His gut isn’t giving him anything, which he finds somewhat worrying, but he powers on. Just as he is about to knock on the tinted window the door is flung open and a man noticeably shorter than him angrily climbs out.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he yells and drags his hands across his face, looking incredibly upset. Svlad takes a few steps back. He doesn’t appear to be dangerous but his intuition is being oddly quiet and he doesn’t want to take any risks.

The man seems to be on the verge of a breakdown; there are tears in his eyes and he keeps muttering “stupid” under his breath as he slides down the side of the car onto the ground. Svlad is unsure how to go about it but he wants to do _something_. He grew up feeling the way the stranger looks to be feeling, and it’s not something he would wish upon anyone.

Hesitantly, he opens his mouth. “Uhm, excuse me, sir,” he winces at the _sir_ because it both sounds and feels awkward to refer to someone who is for one, experiencing a mental breakdown, and two, looks to be the same age. He tells himself there is no turning back. “are you-”

“What do you want?” the man asks. He doesn’t even bother glancing at Svlad, which he finds a little rude.

“Well, I-”

“Just leave, okay?”

Svlad was getting annoyed. “I was just checking to see-”

“I don’t care. Go.”

Svlad dramatically throws his hands up in the air, despite the stranger not being able to see it. “Okay, fine. Jeez. I was just trying to help.” he grumbles and starts to leave, but he doesn’t get further than a few steps before he hears a quiet, “no,”. He stops to listen, because he would hate to have someone walk away from him and decides to give the stranger another chance.

“Look, I’m sorry. I just- I’m not exactly having the best night of my life right now, “ he sighs into his arms that are folded on his knees. “.... You don’t have to leave, if you don’t want to.”

Svlad stands for a moment and considers his words; he could be a murderer for all he knew, or a secret agent sent by Blackwing to collect him. He shakes his head. He knows he’s being ridiculous, but the unease is still there after he turns around and slides down next to the stranger. He decide to ignore it since it doesn’t come form a hunch but rather stupid _what-ifs_. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Svlad drums his fingers on his thigh to the beat of the song stuck in his head. He had heard it earlier, blasting from the speakers in the mall. It wasn’t particularly good, but the melody was pretty catchy, and with not listening to a lot of music outside similar situations, it stuck with him.

“Hey, I- I’m sorry for being rude. I just, I made a big mistake today. I said some things that weren’t true, some really serious things that i now really regret,” he curls further into himself. Svlad’s chest hurts a little when he sees the movement. “Amanda must hate me now. Or, not yet since I also lied to her, but when she finds out she’ll never talk to me again… You know, the worst thing about this is that I don’t even feel bad lying to mom and dad ‘cause how they used to treat Amanda and I, but they’ve changed. I know that, I just… I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over how they acted during my teens, or Amanda’s early teens. God, I must seem like a total asshole to you; ranting about issues that are obviously my fault and then blaming my parents.” he concludes. Svlad doesn’t think he imagined the tremor in his voice during the last sentence.

“I assure you, I don’t think you’re an asshole, err-” he looks at the other man and raises his eyebrows in a silent question, despite his face still being buried in his arms.

“Todd.”

“ _Todd_.” he never really got the whole looking like a name, being the subject to that fairly recently, but at that moment he finally did. To him, Todd certainly looked like a Todd. “Granted, I don’t know the context nor who Amanda is, although I’m fairly certain she is your sister from the information you’ve given me. I also don’t know what you lied about, so excuse me for saying this, but from the sound of it your parents weren’t the… greatest of parents. You did mention being in your teens, which may have made events slightly more dramatic, but if you’re looking back on these things and still think the same of them as an adult, they probably haven’t done a good job at being, well, parents.” his eyes widen at the realisation that he’s said too much and Todd’s gonna think he’s annoying and useless and meddling and-

“Thanks,” Todd interrupts his thoughts. Svlad turns to him and finds bright blue eyes staring back. They’re red rimmed and slightly puffy. He’s been crying, he concludes. “I, I appreciate it. What I did is really shitty, and I can’t escape that. I know I must face my consequences, but what you said about my parents… They weren’t the most available growing up, especially emotionally. They’d be gone for days with work sometimes which left us to fend for ourselves. I came to take care of Amanda more than them, so she doesn’t have a close relationship with them either. I, just, it got worse when I came out to them as bi at fourteen. They nearly threw me out, hadn’t it been for Amanda. Then they started to treat her bad for defending me and they stopped talking to me altogether. We’d still ate dinner together and that kind of stuff, but they didn’t address me directly for years. Only recently has that begun to change, and I just. I want to move out to badly. I ended up lying to them, and Amanda too.” he slumps and puts a hand to his face, muffling his words a little. “I’m scum.”

Svlad listens in horror. He never knew his parents, and that has caused him a great deal of pain, but being treated like air by the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally? He thinks it might hurt more.

“I,” he starts, hesitant. “I’m _so sorry_ to hear that. I can’t… even begin imagine how awful that must have been.”

Todd breathes a humorless laugh. “Yeah, it was pretty bad,” he says.

Silence fills the air again and Svlad finds himself processing what he’d just been told; he wants to ask about Amanda, what he lied about, and what _bi_ means, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he awkwardly puts his hand on Todd’s shoulder and pats it twice.

They’re quiet for several minutes. Svlad almost nods of a couple of times, but he’s determined to keep Todd company. He hadn’t yelled at him yet for being annoying, so Svlad considers that a win on his side. He allows himself to hope that they even might become friends. (He doubts it though. Even he can barely stand himself.)

“Hey,” Todd begins and straightens out. His hair is a little ruffled and Svlad finds it adorable. “I just realised I never asked you your name.”

It takes him a few moments to get what he means because almost no one has asked for his name before. It makes him nervous, so he smiles. “I’m, uh… Dirk.”

Todd smiles back. It’s a sad smile, and Svlad feels his own slip a little. “Nice to meet you Dirk.” the way it sounds makes Svlad incredibly happy. It sounds so _much better_ than Svlad; so much more like the person he wants to be. “Thank you for staying with me. I’m a mess,” he laughs genuinely and Svlad’s chest tightens a little, but not in the way it does when he has panic attacks; it feels nice and comforting.

“I’ve decided," he says. "I'm gonna tell them the truth tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> we all know how that ended


End file.
